The best overall, bar none, for me is a four-way tie between the original ZMF Auteur, LCD X (2021 revision,) Aurorus Audio Borealis, and the Focal Clear. Three out of four of those I can’t wear for very long because of a neck thing, and the Borealis always had issues fitting on my head correctly. I’d listen to mostly rock and metal with them.

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For gaming, it was the HD800 SDR.

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Now I have a HE1000 Stealth, which tries its best to do music and gaming well.

I had to stop following FOMO with this hobby a long time ago. Every time I did, I was just fucking disappointed (with some exceptions…mainly just the Blessing 2 Dusk’s.)

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Focal Elear? Sounds grainy as hell and nothing like the HD6x0.f

Thieaudio tri-brids? The timbre of those EST always sounded off and grating to me - the only one I liked was the Oracle v1, and the rest, Monarch included, were just meh.

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Campfire Andros (the original?) They were great…out of one dap. That wasn’t made anymore. And a pain to use.

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Edition XS? They sounded grating and metallic to me. More so than what was sold to me.

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HD560S? I mean, they’re well balanced, but the jump for 10s of dollars more to the HD6XX was just straight up better to me.

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Now I sit here listening to the only non-hyped Hifiman headphone (HE1000 Stealth) that happens to be the only one I like. I could find fuck all in reliable reviews for it, and the Arya Organic (after hearing so many conflicting things about it from Joshua Valour’s “It’s the best” to Resolves “it’s alright, but too fucking bright”) FOMO did not appeal to me.

This depends a lot on the headphones and the amps.

I’ve heard IEMs and headphones (HD650, HD800, ZMF, ect) that can sound VERY different out of amps depending on the headphone impedance, ect.

Other headphones (like Hifiman Ananda) barely sound different on different SS Amps. Ananda didn’t sound all that different going from a Jotunheim 2 to a BHA-1, where as something like a Focal Clear (or Arya, to a smaller extent) did sound different.

I’ve also heard amps that were touted as “neutral” sound a lot brighter/metallic than was described. Something like the Schiit Hel 2E had an amp.in it that had very obvious upper-mid glare/coloration that made hifiman headphones annoying to listen to.

At the end of the day, it was all very minor differences (with some exceptions) and there’s not a need to spend huge dollars on an amp.